In case you haven’t noticed, we like to promote spending time and money on experiences instead of stuff, so in this post, I’m going to tell you about one of the best food experiences we’ve ever had on a recent road trip to Savannah – the First Squares Food Tour by the Savannah Taste Experience.

The Savannah Food Tour

With a temperature in the low 40’s (single digit Celsius) these two Canadians were downright cold because we had recently been living in Panama and had little exposure to the following in almost two years:

1. Cold weather
2. Amazing mouth-watering food of epic proportions

Fittingly, our food tour started off with a warm bowl of Shellfish Chowder at the Rocks On The River restaurant. The soup was cream based and included clams, shrimp, potatoes, bacon and an amazing smokey finish that had everyone feeling warmed up from the chilly weather. I don’t think we could have asked for a better start to warm us up either, for both the tour and from the cold weather.

The second stop on our food tour wasn’t a restaurant. It was a brief stop in a what used to be the old port where our guide, Country, gave us some Savannah history. This was probably one of the better features of the First Squares Food Tour (aside from food). I don’t want to ruin any of the stories shared by Country, thus, I won’t go into detail about what Savannah secrets were told on our Savannah food tour. Plus, each guide will likely have their own legendary tales to tell. Just another reason to experience the food tour yourself!

Moving on from the history lesson, it was back to the stone-paved streets where we ventured to Tondee’s Tavern for a glass of Sweet Tea and some Shrimp n’ Grits. As I mentioned above, I’m from Canada. We don’t have grits in Canada. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We have “grits”, only “grits” is a nickname for a political party, not a food. Anyway, having only tasted grits once before (the food, not the political party) I wasn’t overly enthusiastic to receive my grits, but the white wine reduction included bacon, so how bad could it be? Well kiss my grits, this dish was ab-so-lute-lee D-vine.

After Tondee’s and another quick history side-note we got to enjoy The Ordinary Pub, which is a contradictory name because it’s not that ordinary at all and has very eclectic and vintage decor. I’ll do this one point-form for visual effect:

• Pork-belly sliders…SOLD!
• Key-Lime Drop…HELLO!
• That thing on the bottom right of the plate in the pic (chow chow)…NICE!
• $10 bottomless Mimosas…CAN YOU SAY PACKED HOUSE!

Next, we got another history lesson – this one involved John Cougar Mellencamp. But I don’t want to spoil it, so that’s all I’ll say. Okay, spoiler; Country informed us that part of the inspiration for John Mellencamp’s song Little Pink Houses was right there in Savannah just down the street from where we were standing. Cool!

And after another Country schoolin’ we shoe-leathered over to Molly MacPherson’s – the last Scottish Pub in Savannah. There’s a pretty neat global story behind Molly MacPherson’s too (again, you’ll have to take the Savannah food tour to learn about it). Shepherd’s Pie was our sampling at Molly’s and I was really tempted to hide my empty bowl and say “I didn’t get one” just so I could “sample” (okay, “eat”) another bowl. In all fairness, being of Irish descent I have a love for anything with potatoes in it, so you can’t really blame me.

It was then time for desert – Hazaa! We ventured over to Mabel’s Cupcakes for some pretty tasty Butter Butter Cream cupcakes to finish the food part of the tour with. We learned a new way to eat cupcakes too. Take half the bottom off and put it on top, basically sandwiching your cupcake. My wife loved it! Oh, and once again it was time for a Country story – this one involved Robert Redford and cupcakes!

The next two stops on our tour were The Salt Table and the Savannah Bee Company, respectively. The former offered an insanely wide variety of flavor-infused salts. I mean you name it, they probably have it.

The Savannah Bee Company offered the complete opposite of The Salt Table – sweet delicious (and nutritious) honey. Our tour received numerous samples of not only honey, but honey comb (the real thing, not the cereal). But here’s something I didn’t know and hopefully it will school you too: If you put honey in your tea or coffee (or anything hot), wait for the beverage to be cooled off enough to drink before adding your honey, otherwise the high heat can ruin the medicinal effects that honey offers.

With our bellies full of food, and our brains full of historical tidbits, the Savannah food tour came to an end. I can’t thank the Savannah Taste Experience enough for this sponsored Savannah food tour, and a special thanks to our guide, Country. She had an ample amount of stories,  a great sense of humor, and most of all, that Southern charm everyone talks about. You can also visit them on Facebook, Twitter, G+, or if you’re interested in food pics, check them out on Pinterest and Instagram.

And how’s this for one last “fitting” moment; As we drove home on the I-95 and waved goodbye to Savannah, John Mellencamp’s Little Pink Houses came on the radio…ain’t that America!

Now go sell all your stuff and experience something!